……once again God; thanks for everything.

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Thursday 6th November – Cleavage & Lipstick

Arrived (late) at work yesterday to discover my colleague, Reception-Rachel, hiding behind the front desk engaged in a flurry of hair-brushing, lipstick-applying and uniform-adjusting.

Can only mean one thing, she had, once again, woken up in some random bed this morning and also arrived late. Unlike her however, my uncle isn’t the manager of the hotel so unlike her, I was getting ‘the look’ from Manager-Milton who was Gestapo-Two-Stepping across the lobby toward us.

What generally happens in these situations is that Reception-Rachel smiles sweetly, and gets away with it while I get reminded (insert watch tapping here) of the time.

Manager-Milton is under the impression that Reception-Rachel is studying hard to be a solicitor and, as a result, is frazzled, overwrought and suffering from educationally induced pressure sickness.

A book, I am frequently reminded, that I could do with taking a leaf out of.

As if.

In truth, Reception-Rachel has only but a hazy recollection of the location of her college.

Pettily pedantic as he generally is, Manager-Milton suffers from DNA-Blindness where his niece is concerned.

On an average week she routinely has to have time off for washing-machine repair men, car malfunctions, Sky repair men, Norovirus, friend’s funerals (her social group are dropping like flies) and on one occasion; Bird Flu.

Manager-Mike, trailed by Junior-Jeffery, was diverted in his final approach to the reception desk by a series of shuddering crashes emanating from the direction of the kitchen and, as he screeched to a halt, Junior-Jeremy laden with the stack of ‘Keeping-Stuff-Organised-Paperwork’ that he is forced to lug around all day, crashed into him causing the organised paperwork and notebooks to become a disorganised, floor-littering mess of crap.

With Reception-Rachel sniggering under her breath beside me and Junior-Jeremy scrambling to gather an autumnal flood of drifting paperwork, Manager-Milton gave me the ‘I’m watching you’ two fingers pointed at his eyes, one pointed at me gesture, and then, beaming lovingly at Rachel, glaring venomously at Jeremy, busied off toward the lair of Culinary-Claude.

With that, Rachel undid a couple of buttons, adjusted her cleavage upwards (a girl, as she is frequently heard to say, has got to eat) and another fun-packed day of irritating our guests began.

I hope Culinary-Claude hasn’t finally lost the gay, French plot.

His frequent hysterical and tearful threats to feed Waiter-Walter into the meat-grinder may very well, one of these days, become a reality.

Let’s not downplay the upside of a good, old-fashioned melt-down.

Unlike my boozy hussy-hag of a colleague, eating isn’t my major concern, but wherever I sense an ugly drama.